Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "at the rate" or "according to the rate." Used in legal and commercial contexts to indicate that a calculation, apportionment, or payment is to be made proportionally — that is, at the applicable rate or in proportion to some established measure. The phrase functions as a shorthand instruction that a figure should be computed pro rata rather than in a fixed or arbitrary amount.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in older English legal materials and historical commercial documents. Researchers encountering it in primary sources — particularly in admiralty, insurance, or property apportionment contexts — should understand it as a signal that a proportional or rate-based calculation governs the transaction or judgment at issue. It does not appear as a term of art in modern American legal practice; if you are reading it in a contemporary document, you are almost certainly working with a translated or antiquarian source.
The phrase is closely tied to the broader family of pro rata concepts. In historical sources, juxta ratam and pro rata were sometimes used interchangeably, but juxta ratam carries a slightly more specific connotation: computation according to an established rate (such as a daily rate, a freight rate, or an insurance premium rate), rather than simply a share of a whole. Researchers should not treat the two as identical without examining context.
The Black's Law Dictionary entry is sparse — the source text as preserved reads "at or after the rate" with surrounding text that appears to be from an adjacent entry, suggesting the term received only passing treatment even in historical legal dictionaries. Researchers should not expect to find extended doctrinal discussion of juxta ratam as a standalone concept; its significance lies in its interpretive function within instruments and decrees, not as the subject of independent legal rules.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary defines juxta ratam as meaning "at or after the rate," citing Dyer 82 — a reference to Sir James Dyer's reports of English cases from the sixteenth century, one of the foundational common law reporters. The citation to Dyer situates this phrase firmly in early modern English legal usage. The definition is brief because the phrase functions instrumentally: it tells a reader how to compute, not what to compute. Historical dictionaries do not develop the term beyond this gloss, and no significant doctrinal evolution is recorded. The phrase belongs to the layer of Latin legal shorthand that practitioners of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries used routinely but that rarely generated independent commentary.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase has no meaningful presence in American statutory or case law as a distinct term. Its relevance is confined to English common law sources and materials derived from them. Researchers working in admiralty or maritime law may encounter it in older charter party or freight apportionment contexts.